Bibliometric Analysis of Veterinary Communication Education Research over the Last Two Decades: Rare Yet Essential

Research of veterinary communication education is a relatively rare but important field, and its importance has been increasingly noticed recently. This study aims to describe the existing veterinary education research literature by adopting the systematic bibliometric approach. We conducted a comprehensive literature exploration on worldwide veterinary education and veterinary communication education publications in the Web of Science Core Collection database from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2021. VOSviewer and EXCEL were used to identify trends and patterns in characteristics of the publications, including author affiliations and countries, and the publishing journals. Based on our search criteria, in the past 22 years, there have been 6006 veterinary education publications with 101 publications in 2000, 684 publications in 2021 (577% increase), and 677 communication-related publications with 9 publications in 2000, 107 publications in 2021 (1189% increase). The VOSviewer results indicate that both the United States and England were the most vigorous countries with close collaboration. Our results show the publication quantity has been increasing at a sharp slope rate over the past twenty years, which indicates the importance and growth of veterinary education and the veterinary communication education research field, and identifies the international collaborations among countries and institutions.


Materials and Methods
We conducted a comprehensive literature exploration in the WoSCC database at National Taiwan University, Taiwan. This database was chosen due to the journals within the database having been selected for inclusion based on high impacts in the respective fields. To understand the world research trends over the past 22 years, we collected all the related research published from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2021. In the WoSCC database, "Topic" was one of the most common fields used for database searching and it searches for the entered term in Titles, Abstracts, Author keywords, and Keyword Plus fields of records in the WoSCC database. We used the following search strategy for identifying the related publication in the WoSCC. We searched for veterinary or veterinarian with any of the following terms: education, training, or learn by topic, and the time period was limited from 2000 to 2021. The searching strategy used was: (veterinary or veterinarian) (Topic) and (education, training, or learn) (Topic) in the Year 2000-2021. Additionally, the subset on communication was searched by adding the communication by topic in the same period of time.
Data searched from the WoSCC were downloaded for more detailed analysis, including the author names and their address, the years, titles, abstracts, citations, and research area of the publications, and the published journals related information, including impact factors and rankings. Summary statistics about the publications, such as the publication year, countries, and research areas were gathered through the WoSCC interface. The Microsoft Excel analysis tool was used to aggregate data downloaded from WoSCC and draw related figures, including the geographic-distribution world map.
Software was available for bibliometric analysis, such as VOSviewer (Leiden University's Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands), which has recently been widely employed to conduct bibliometric research. The VOSviewer was used to visualize the analysis results on identifying the clusters of network maps on authorship and institution collaboration. VOSviewer is a publicly available tool. Researchers from Leiden University in the Netherlands, van Eck and Waltman, presented VOSviewer, a freely available computer program developed for constructing and viewing bibliometric maps in 2010 [31]. The VOSviewer Manual written by Nees Jan van Eck and Ludo Waltman at the University Leiden in 2022 [32] describes the software and applications in detail. VOSviewer is a software tool used for creating maps based on network data and for visualizing and exploring these maps. The functionality of VOSviewer can be summarized as follows: creating maps based on network data, visualizing and exploring maps. VOSviewer has been primarily intended for analyzing bibliometric networks, however, it can in fact be used to create, visualize, and explore maps based on any type of network data [32]. VOSviewer has been developed in the Java programming language and can run on most operating system platforms. VOSviewer can be downloaded from www.vosviewer.com (accessed on 1 January 2022) for free.

Quantity of Publications
Based on our search criteria, there have been 6006 veterinary education publications (VEPs) from 2000 to 2021. As shown in Figure 1, there were 101 VEPs (blue-color column in Figure 1) in 2000 and 684 publications in 2021, with a 577% increase.  Data searched from the WoSCC were downloaded for more detailed analysis, inclu  ing the author names and their address, the years, titles, abstracts, citations, and resear  area of the publications, and the published journals related information, including impa  factors and rankings. Summary statistics about the publications, such as the publicatio year, countries, and research areas were gathered through the WoSCC interface. The M crosoft Excel analysis tool was used to aggregate data downloaded from WoSCC an draw related figures, including the geographic-distribution world map.
Software was available for bibliometric analysis, such as VOSviewer (Leiden Unive sity's Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands), which h recently been widely employed to conduct bibliometric research. The VOSviewer w used to visualize the analysis results on identifying the clusters of network maps on a thorship and institution collaboration. VOSviewer is a publicly available tool. Researche from Leiden University in the Netherlands, van Eck and Waltman, presented VOSviewe a freely available computer program developed for constructing and viewing bibliometr maps in 2010 [31]. The VOSviewer Manual written by Nees Jan van Eck and Lud Waltman at the University Leiden in 2022 [32] describes the software and applications detail. VOSviewer is a software tool used for creating maps based on network data an for visualizing and exploring these maps. The functionality of VOSviewer can be summ rized as follows: creating maps based on network data, visualizing and exploring map VOSviewer has been primarily intended for analyzing bibliometric networks, however can in fact be used to create, visualize, and explore maps based on any type of netwo data [32]. VOSviewer has been developed in the Java programming language and can ru on most operating system platforms. VOSviewer can be downloaded fro www.vosviewer.com (accessed on 1 January 2022) for free.

Quantity of Publications
Based on our search criteria, there have been 6006 veterinary education publicatio (VEPs) from 2000 to 2021. As shown in Figure 1, there were 101 VEPs (blue-color colum in Figure 1) in 2000 and 684 publications in 2021, with a 577% increase. Among these collected publications based on our search criteria, communication-r lated publications (denoted as "veterinary communication education publication VCEPs) were 677, which was 11.27% of the total publications from 2000 to 2021. As show in Figure 1, there were 9 VCEPs (red-color column in Figure 1) in 2000 and 1 Among these collected publications based on our search criteria, communicationrelated publications (denoted as "veterinary communication education publication", VCEPs) were 677, which was 11.27% of the total publications from 2000 to 2021. As shown in Figure 1, there were 9 VCEPs (red-color column in Figure 1) in 2000 and 107 publications in 2021, with a 1189% increase. The black line shown in Figure 1 represents the percentages of VCEPs over VEPs from 2000 to 2021.

Highly Cited Publications
Highly cited articles, known as "citation classics", are often acknowledged as highly influential in the field [33]. The 10 most highly cited publications in veterinary education publications from 2000 to 2020, including 7 original articles and 3 reviews, are shown in Table 1. The top highly cited publication was by Sike (2016) with 1088 citations [34]. Among these publications, communication-related highly cited top 10 publications, including 8 original articles and 2 reviews, are shown in Table 2. We showed the 10 top-cited publications and the details of these publications, including author, title, and published year, are summarized in Tables 1 and 2.

Publications Titles
Our search terms identified a total of 872 SCI/SSCI journals (also named "publication titles" in WOSCC), which have published research manuscripts in the veterinary education field (n = 6006). The top 10 journals most published and their related characteristics, including impact factors and rankings in 2020, are listed in Table 3. The Journal of Veterinary Medical Education has topped the list with 1191 publications (19.83%) with an impact factor of 1.027. The Journal of The American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) has been ranked second with 263 publications (4.38%), and Veterinary Record ranked third with 257 publications (4.28%). These journals, especially the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education, were undoubtedly of importance to this field. It is noteworthy that the publication numbers of other journals in this field were relatively small. Among 872 journals, there were only 7 journals (0.8%) that published more than 100 research publications, and 519 journals (59.52%) published only 1 publication. In the subset of veterinary education publications (n = 677), 872 SCI/SSCI journals have published research manuscripts. The top 10 most published journals and their related characteristics, including impact factors and rankings in 2020, are listed in Table 4. The Journal of Veterinary Medical Education topped the list with 215 publications (31.76%) with an impact factor of 1.027. Veterinary Record ranked second with 32 publications (4.73%), and Frontiers in Veterinary Science was ranked third with 30 publications (4.43%). These journals, especially the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education, were also undoubtedly of importance to this field. It is noteworthy that the publication numbers of other journals in this field were relatively small. Among 163 journals, there were only 6 journals (0.89%) that published more than the other 157 journals (347 and 330, respectively), and 90 journals (13.29%) published only 1 publication.

Countries' Publications and the Collaborations
The 6006 veterinary education publications (VEPs) based on our search criteria collected from WOSCC from 2000 to 2021 were published by 152 countries, and 677 veterinary communication education publications (VCEPs) were published by 78 countries. The top 10 countries participating in VEPs and VCEPs are presented in Table 5. The top 10 countries participated in at least 170 studies related to VEPs and at least 14 related to VCEPs. Among them, the United States and England were the leading countries in both VEPs and VCEPs. The United States participated in the most studies in both areas, with 2159 (36.55%) and 296 (43.72%), respectively, followed by England with 777 (12.94%) and 115 (16.99%), respectively. The top third country was Australia in VEPs (460, 7.66%) and Canada in VCEPs (115, 16.99%). We adopted VOSviewer to analyze the co-authorship collaboration among the countries ( Figure 2). The thickness of the lines indicates the scale of collaboration between the countries. The results show that both the United States and England are the most vigorous countries in this field, and these two countries also have a close collaboration.
Vet. Sci. 2022, 9, x FOR PEER REVIEW We adopted VOSviewer to analyze the co-authorship collaboration among the tries ( Figure 2). The thickness of the lines indicates the scale of collaboration betwe countries. The results show that both the United States and England are the most vig countries in this field, and these two countries also have a close collaboration.  Regarding veterinary communication education publications (VCEPs), a total of 78 countries contributed to VCEPs in the last 22 years. The top 5 countries/regions that published the most were as follows: USA (296, 43.72%), England (115, 16.99%), Canada (84, 12.41%), Australia (71, 10.49%), and Germany (31, 4.58%). The VOSviewer visualized country co-authorship collaboration analysis is presented in Figure 3. The results also indicate that the United States is the most vigorously publishing country regarding the VCEPs, with close collaborations with lots of countries, including England and Canada.      The results indicate that there are few major research networks of institutiona laboration in veterinary education publications (VEPs), including leading institutio the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. However, the collaboration work of institutions of veterinary communication education publications (VCEPs) is paratively small and sparse. The results indicate that there are few major research networks of institutional collaboration in veterinary education publications (VEPs), including leading institutions in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. However, the collaboration network of institutions of veterinary communication education publications (VCEPs) is comparatively small and sparse.

Authors
The 6006 veterinary communication publications collected based on our search criteria were published by 17,152 authors (not including Anonymous). The top three authors were as follows: Sarah Baillie from the University of Bristol in the UK with 44 publications (0.733%), Stephen May from the University of London Royal Veterinary College in the UK (38, 0.633%), and Cindy Adams from the University of Calgary in Canada (34, 0.566%). The 10th ranked author published 21 works.
The 677 veterinary communication education publications collected based on our search criteria were published by 2231 authors. The top three authors were as follows: Cindy Adams from the University of Calgary in the Canada with 32 publications (4.71%), Jason B. Coe from the University of Guelph in the Canada (20, 2.94%), and Jane R. Shaw from the Colorado State University in the United States (13, 1.91%). The interesting point is that these three top leading authors are all alumni of the University of Guelph. The 10th ranked author published 7 works. This result reveals that this is still a field with few publications and indicates that there is great potential for researchers to devote their studies to this field and become one of the top leading authors in the future.
To further investigate the influential research teams and co-authorship networks, we performed the co-authorship analyses by VOSviewer; different collaboration groups are represented by different colors. The co-authorship network is shown in Figures 6 and 7 showing the co-authorship networks in Figure 6, and the 677 veterinary communication education publications showing its co-authorship networks in Figure 7.

Discussion
Our results provide a fresh perception of the global view of the progressive paths for veterinary education publications (VEPs) and veterinary communication education publications (VCEPs). Over the past twenty years, the number of both VEPs (n = 6006, mean = 273.0 publication/year) and VCEPs (n = 677, mean = 30.8 publication/year) research publications per year have continued to increase. We found that the increase in publications reveals several interesting points. Firstly, there are two turning points found in the publication trend in the VEPs. Before 2016, there were few related publications, i.e., less than 300 publications per year. Additionally, since 2020, there has been a substantial increase, especially in 2021, in the number of publications that was more than 600. Secondly, We found another interesting result that determined that this publication outcome fits the Pareto principle [35], which states that 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes (the "vital few"). For the total number of publications for veterinary education, 130 journals (14.9%) published 80.4% of the publications. Additionally, the results even revealed an extreme case in the Pareto principle: the top 10 journals (1.1% of 872 journals) published 40.63% of the total publications. This phenomenon is also shown in the subset of veterinary communication education publications.
There is also an interesting point obtained from our results. When comparing the top ten top citations with the top ten journals, we found that the JAVMA (Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, listed as the second highest publishing Journal shown in Table 3) has three highly cited publications by Shaw et al. (2004), Coe et al. (2007), and Coe et al. (2008) [14][15][16]. All these three highly cited works are related to the communication and relationship between the owners of the company animals and the veterinarians, with a focus on medical expenses and trust relationships. There are two highly cited publications by Jansen et al. (2010) [8] and Ritter et al. (2017) [9], which are from the Journal of Dairy Science (which is ranked eighth in publication quantities as shown in Table 3) and one highly cited publication by Garforth et al. (2013) [10] from Preventive Veterinary Medicine related to the communication and relationship between the owners of the economic animals and the veterinarians with a focus on animal health status, the prevention of infectious diseases, and prevention and control, respectively. However, we also noticed that there are highly cited works published by the journals that are not in the top 10 publishing rank list. For example, there were 2 highly cited publications by Gardner et al. (2006) [17] and Kristensen and Jakobsen (2011) [12] from the New Zealand Veterinary Journal, listed as 22nd (publication number 38, 0.63%), that focusing on the better communication skills of veterinarians would decrease the workplace stress of veterinarians and help to solve the dairy farmers' management-decision challenges, respectively. All these reveal the importance of the dilemmas encountered in both the workplaces and field with insights into the unmet needs.
There were some limitations to this study. We searched the WoSCC database due to its high-quality database and peer-reviewed quality research publications, which does not include popular sciences or newspapers. Furthermore, we only included research publications from 2000 to 2021, and the limited number of search terms was another potential limitation. There were also limitations concerning the analytic tool. Although the VOSviewer is a free software and well applied in bibliometric analysis, which can recognize the networks among countries, organizations, and authors, the country names were not shown as capitalized, and the selection bias of VOSviewer underestimated the academic influence of authors due to VOSviewer only recognizing the first author.
This study delivered key characteristic information of publications in VEPs and VCEPs over the last 21 years. In addition to the traditional bibliometric descriptive analysis, we are inspired by reviewers and suggest that future studies could consider expanding the horizons on traditional bibliometric research perspectives to include inferential statistics to explore the differences significances among groups.

Conclusions
In conclusion, we found that the publication quantity has been increasing at a sharp slope rate over the last twenty years, which indicates that both veterinary education research and veterinary communication research have been in growing stages, and will attract increased attention in the future. In the veterinary education field, the United States published the most literature, followed by the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and Germany. The Journal of Veterinary Medical Education accounts for the largest proportion of veterinary education publications, followed by the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA), Veterinary Record, Animals, and Preventive Veterinary Medicine. Our bibliometric study provides unique information with respect to the high volume and variety of published data within the field of veterinary communication education, and it will be helpful for researchers who focus on this research field to acquire useful information about veterinary communication education. It also identifies collaborations among fields of research, researchers, and institutions useful in facilitating potential venues for future research and knowledge frontiers in the veterinary education research field.